


change in pressure

by Companionable



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forgiveness, Implied Relationships, Multi, Pre-Episode 48, spoilers for episode 44
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Companionable/pseuds/Companionable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange noise wakes Percy from sleep among the other members of Vox Machina, and leads him to a conversation with Vax'ildan that meanders in the night. Honesty is the best policy, and it's certainly easiest when hours bend closer to morn than eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	change in pressure

**Author's Note:**

> this was wholly and entirely inspired by liam and taliesin singing to each other (and subsequently flirting mightily with each other) in episode 48, bc i am weak when my faves sing and even more weak to characters reaching catharsis with each other. so here! have some emotional catharsis!
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](http://trickfootie.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/tayttimus) for more of my critrole feelings, among other things!
> 
> ETA: so i totally spaced on the fact that percy DEFINITELY knows elvish uh...... i dont want to hand wave, but i mean... pretend that booklearnin' elvish is really different from hearing it sung? maybe vax is mumbling and its harder to catch without the enunciation? fuck if i know, guys, i was comin' out of a writer's block and posted this without beta lol.

It’s late when a quiet noise wakes Percy from sleep, and in the back of his mind he hears a voice that tells him to ignore it and sleep. Not for the first time, he revels for a moment in the fact that it is his own voice and no other he’s heard before, then he summarily pays it little mind and sits up. The campfire burns low and the night sky is clear and perhaps a little midnight air is good for anyone.

He looks around the fire to see who’s on watch now, who might be making noise in the dark of the night around them. Vex lies not too far off from him, within range of an outstretched arm if he felt the need for reassurance, a fact which settles his heart and stirs it to quicken all at once, and it is _too late_ to wonder after what that means. Just beyond her toes sleeps Pike, and beside her a hopeful Scanlan, the two gnomes separated by Grog’s enormous warhammer, bigger than both of them by half. The goliath himself sleeps sprawled in all his largess along the far side of the fire, twitching and scratching at his beard -- among other locales. Percy is strangely comforted to know that Craven Edge rests some space away from Grog, though he’s not entirely sure he could put words to why Scanlan might have insisted on such a precaution.

Which means the noise-maker on watch is Vax’ildan. Percy oughtn’t be surprised, really.

Far from the light of the fire, Vax’s turned back sits like a sentinel upon their party, an impassive wall that nearly blends with the darkness of the night. The shadows seem to cling to him even more now than they did before, a trait Percy wouldn’t necessarily attribute to Vax’s new armour in it’s entirety. He certainly shares Vex’s worries for her brother’s fate, but he will be damned if he lets either of them down, gives either of them any more reason to find disappointment in him.

Amidst his musings, the noise which woke Percy clarifies in the night, and he realizes that Vax is singing. The moon has begun to rise and Vax stares at it -- with a focus that might be better paid elsewhere considering he is on night watch -- and from his mouth drifts a soft, gentle, lilting melody that rolls through his vocal chords and quietly out into the air. It’s part lullaby, part requiem, and though Percy cannot understand a single word of the undulating elvish Vax is singing in, he feels a part of him ache. It feels remarkably like the part of him which ached all during his return to Whitestone, that broke at seeing Cassandra once more.

He means for announcing his arrival to be less than startling, but Vax wouldn’t have taken human eyesight into account when picking his point of watch. So, while half-elvish eyes can see just fine, Percy finds himself walking his delicate shins directly into a boulder of perfect height to elicit a startled “Blast!” from him into the stillness of the night. Vax’s singing abruptly stops as he rolls backward over one shoulder onto one foot and one knee, daggers held in reverse-grip in both hands, his eyes trained ferociously on the threat which has accosted him this night.

Vax is straightening as Percy excuses himself. “Shit... Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to end up quite so alarming.”

The rogue laughs quietly at that, as he drops his daggers to let them rematerialize on his belt. “No apology necessary, Freddy.” He’s uncoiling like a snake from slumber, relaxing and relenting in the dawning realization that no one has come to take the lives of his family. “Go back to bed. You needn’t be up just yet, the moon isn’t even to height; I’ll not need relief for a few hours more.”

Instead, Percy plunks himself down upon the very boulder which assaulted his legs, smiling into the darkness of the night. “I do hope you’ll forgive me if I say I’d rather prefer the company over rest.”

Vax looks at him strangely, as though Percy were a very fancy lock with many intricate mechanisms, and he were wondering exactly which tools would unlock him the quickest. Then he sits back amidst the grass, staring back up at the stars. “I’ve proven myself quite incapable of withholding forgiveness from you, Percival.”

The dark coils around them like a cloak, warm in a way that something as dark as night probably shouldn’t be. Silence returns. Percy feels himself regret stepping forward; if he’d only left Vax alone, he might have continued.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Percy says, in lieu of being able to sing himself.

“Most people don’t. It’s not an ability I’m wont to advertise.”

“Something your father had you train in?”

It’s maybe not the question he ought to have asked. “Certainly not. Father only cared for my knowledge of politics and my countenance as his ill-gotten son. Only part of him in that was the language.” For a moment, Percy entertains the idea of leaving Vax be, letting him alone to stew as he is quite clearly a bit thorny when he’s on watch. But Vax’s face softens as his eyes look to the moon again. “No, that was a song our mother sang to us when she would braid our hair. She said it was something Father would sing while they were falling asleep, but I’m not entirely certain that could be true.”

Percy casts his eyes at the moon which has taken Vax’s interest. Something flies in the face of it -- a bat or some other night-flier -- and tears Percy’s gaze away. “There was a song, in my childhood.” He doesn’t mean to start telling the story, but it’s tumbling past his lips before he really knows what’s going on. “Julius, my elder brother... he would sing it to us younger ones when we were upset at night -- to Ludwig and Cassandra especially -- to keep us out of our mother and father’s hair as we were sent to bed. He’d gather us into Cassandra’s room, have us cozy up under her covers, and then he’d sing until the little ones were all asleep. Vesper and I would take a child each: I grabbing Ludwig, she carrying Whitney, and Julius would end up nudging Oliver along to bed if he hadn’t already fallen asleep. And Julius would sing the whole way, his voice echoing down the halls of Whitestone, as we put each of the children down, then found our beds ourselves.”

When he finally has enough wherewithal to stop staring into the middle distance, Percy finds himself the host to Vax’s undivided attention. Involuntarily, he feels his cheeks go hot, and he thanks Gods old and new that Vax can’t see colour too particularly well in the dark. “He sounds like a wonderful older brother, Percival. You must have loved him dearly.”

That strikes him. “Actually, I’d completely forgotten he’d do that,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Vax. “It wasn’t until I woke to your voice that the memory started coming back to me. I might never have remember that, I’d all but erased it as I got older and started avoiding talk of succession by retreating into my workshop. And then, well...”

“Things,” Vax supplies, helpfully, with a devilish grin.

“Yes,” Percy agrees, a similar smile on his face. “Things.”

They share a quiet chuckle then, and a cloud passes over the moon. Vax’s face is no longer even remotely visible in the all-encompassing darkness, which makes it as good a time as any to speak truly. “I miss you, Vax’ildan.”

“Miss me? Percy, I’ve not gone anywhere without you for longer than a few days in months. I’m right here.”

It feels foolish to have said it aloud, yet the weight it lifts off his shoulders to have Vax know... “Not literally, my friend. I meant... Oh, blast, forget it.”

Vax huffs, a mirthless noise. “I think I know what you’re alluding to.”

“We used to be closer, or so I’ve felt. I know... I know I’ve done much to alienate you. To cause hate and contempt within you for me. I’m sure I serve only as a reminder of--the shadow of what Vex--”

A long, drawn out sigh. Vax shifts in the grass, and Percy thinks he sees his fingers braiding three long blades together. “I love my sister, Percy. I’m sure you and everyone else knows this well. I want nothing but her happiness.” His fingers twist the blades at a remarkable speed, a pace which even Percy’s sisters barely reached. “But what ought also be abundantly clear that, for all my guard and care, my sister is her own woman, and she can find happiness wherever she may.”

Percy wonders for a moment what he’s missing, where this line of thinking fits in their conversation, where talk of Vex’ahlia’s happiness would have come in.

He puts it together just as Vax draws the lines for him. He looks up to catch Percy’s gaze, and the cloud moves off the moon, lighting his eyes. “You make her happy, Percival. I’m not sure even she knows quite to what extent that is true, but when you’re around she shines brighter. She shines like she did when we lived with our mother, the kind of carefree happiness I’ve not seen on her since we left our home with our mother, and certainly not since we left Syngorn.”

For a moment, Percy struggles with honesty, but he can’t hide from Vax. Not easily. “Just because she forgives me doesn’t mean you have to. It may have happened to her, but she didn’t... she wasn’t affected by it. If no one had told her, she might not have known. You experienced it, and I am the one that brought that experience to bear upon you. You are not the one whose feelings on the matter surprise me! I’m not sure it even upsets me that you might never forgive me for it, because I’m not quite sure I will ever forgive myself!”

He doesn’t realize how close to shouting he is until he stops talking. He glances over his shoulder back at the camp, Vax mirroring him, but all they get is a cacophonous snore from Grog and a sleepy glare from Pike. They’ve woken no one.

“I just... I already know that Vex has forgiven me, however foolish I might think her for being so blasé, but it’s happened. Admittedly, now the only thing I’ve left to wait for is the same thing from you.” Percy starts fiddling with one of the loose buttons on his jacket. He’ll need to repair it soon enough. “I’m terribly fond of you, Vax, just as much as I am of your sister. It’s... I find it quite painful to think that I might have undone everything we’ve experienced together.”

The night is quiet under Percy’s confession. Vax isn’t moving anymore, his knot of braided grass hanging from his fingers as he stares up into the stars. He wonders if he hasn’t said too much, shown too much candor to a man who did not feel the same way. It feels awfully like advances being rejected.

“What was the song your brother sang to your family, Percival?”

The request comes out of the blue, and it takes Percy a moment to tie it to the conversation they were having previously, but eventually the notes find their way to Percy’s voice box. Almost of their own accord, he hums them quietly after moments of silence between the two of them. The words come back to him rather more slowly, but they do eventually. 

_Tonight, as Pelor lays us down,_

_His sentinel recedes,_

_We wear His grace upon our crown_

_And serve Him in our deeds._

_When come, at last, the light of day,_

_And morning sees Him rise,_

_Sing praise, my child, within His rays,_

_For there protection lies._

Vax is looking at him with a small, tender smile, his chin resting on a propped up fist. “You’ve a lovely singing voice of your own, there, de Rolo.”

Heat skitters across his cheeks once more. “Well, I’m sure my childhood vocal instructor would be very surprised to hear you say as much.”

“Will you teach me?” Vax asks, a soft request spoken in earnest, so startling for how Percy was not expecting it. “The lullaby, I mean. I quite like it.

Percy smiles. “As much as I can, of course. I think I may have mixed up some verses, and I’m almost certain there was one about death or smiting or something, but it sounds nice.”

Vax laughs, resting back on his palms in the grass. “Well, you teach me yours and I can teach you mine. How’s your elvish, Percy?”

“Oh, rustier than it ought to be, certainly.”

“We’ll have you up to par by first light then.”

They’ve made their way through much of the verses of both songs, and most of the enduring darkness now broken by the rising of the sun, when Vax leans deeply into Percy’s space and presses a quick, chaste kiss to his lips. Too startled to say or do much, Percy waits for Vax to quietly justify, “I do forgive you, Freddy. Don’t expect me to forget, or to be anything other than tense and braced for the worst when you and Vex’ahlia get ahead of yourselves, but...” A hand rises to cup Percy’s cheek, cold from the night air yet comforting all the same. “I forgive you. I know better than most how decision making in the moment leaves little space for thought of safety.”

Percy smiles gently to him, and opens his mouth to say something, but finds himself cut off by Vax speaking once more.

“Now, though, I think it’s time you forgave yourself.”

Behind them, the camp rouses to wakefulness as the sun begins to hit their eyelids, and Vax stands to make for it, offering a hand to Percy. He takes it, stands himself, and keeps hold on Vax’s forearm for but a moment. “I think perhaps you’re right. Thank you, my friend.”

Vax smiles, huge and unburdened for the first time in weeks. “My friend, think nothing of it.”


End file.
